Graphene and Graphene-Based Nanocomposites: From Synthesis to Applications

Graphene has been playing a vital role in the domain of nanoscience and nanotechnology as its physical and chemical properties can be easily tuned as per requirement. Graphene can be used for designing numerous types of nanomaterials including quantum dots, nanoparticles, and nanocomposites useful for various applications. Amongst these, nanocomposites form of graphene, are attracting great attention for a wide range of applications in optoelectronic, catalysis/photocatalysis, imaging, solar cells, sensing, and so on. In this book chapter, different preparation methods for graphene/graphene oxide (GO) like chemical vapor deposition (CVD), mechanical exfoliation, chemical oxidation and reduction methods, epitaxial growth using metals, etc. have been emphasized. Graphene and its derivatives can form nanocomposites with metallic nanoparticles, oxides/hydroxides of transition metals, sulfides/nitrides of transition metals, etc. and are discussed in the next section. The nanocomposites made of graphene, its derivatives, and rare-earth (RE3+)-doped lanthanides oxides (Ln2O3), binary/ternary lanthanide fluorides (LnF3, NaLnF4), alkaline earth metal-based binary fluorides (BaF2), have also been illustrated. Graphene has also shown the potential to form nanocomposites with RE3+-complexes and its lattice can be doped with RE3+ ions too. Finally, applications of the above-mentioned composites in sensing, photocatalysis, photonics, bio-photonics, and solar cells are presented.